book cover of The Last Book of Wonder
 

The Last Book of Wonder

(2004)
A collection of stories by

 
 
The works of Lord Dunsany must be the foundation of any good library of science fiction and fantasy. His tales are all masterpieces (literally), but without a doubt their greatest virtue lies in the language Dunsany uses in telling them. His power of language is so dominating that it would be easy to forget that even with less mellifluous telling his tales would still be worthy reading. The tales uniformly are gentle in tone, stately in progress. They reflect an author with a keen sense of humor and irony—with the proverbial twinkle in his eye—and with an appreciation of the ultimate futility of most human longings.

THE LAST BOOK OF WONDER is a magnificent collection of stories written as the world raged in The War to End All Wars, the First World War. It is Dunsany at his peak. In the Preface he writes: "My dreams are here before you amongst the following pages; and writing in a day when life is cheap, dreams seem to me all the dearer, the only things that survive."

The stories are a lush tapestry of language, of images of people, places, and things that cannot exist, yet are familiar, as real as anything can be. They are full of wonder and also unforgettable. In the end, they are a necessary part of any fantasy collection.

Genre: Fantasy

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